J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 eBook

She was one of those good women whom Nature provides
to receive the burden of other people’s secrets,
as the reeds did long ago, only that no chance wind
could steal them away, and send them singing into strange
ears.

You may still see her snuggery in Mardykes Hall, though
the housekeeper’s room is now in a different
part of the house.

Mrs. Julaper’s room was in the oldest quarter
of that old house. It was wainscoted, in black
panels, up to the ceiling, which was stuccoed over
in the fanciful diagrams of James the First’s
time. Several dingy portraits, banished from
time to time from other statelier rooms, found a temporary
abode in this quiet spot, where they had come finally
to settle and drop out of remembrance. There
is a lady in white satin and a ruff; a gentleman whose
legs have faded out of view, with a peaked beard,
and a hawk on his wrist. There is another in a
black periwig lost in the dark background, and with
a steel cuirass, the gleam of which out of the darkness
strikes the eye, and a scarf is dimly discoverable
across it. This is that foolish Sir Guy Mardykes,
who crossed the Border and joined Dundee, and was
shot through the temple at Killiecrankie and whom
more prudent and whiggish scions of the Mardykes family
removed forthwith from his place in the Hall, and
found a retirement here, from which he has not since
emerged.

At the far end of this snug room is a second door,
on opening which you find yourself looking down upon
the great kitchen, with a little balcony before you,
from which the housekeeper used to issue her commands
to the cook, and exercise a sovereign supervision.

There is a shelf on which Mrs Julaper had her Bible,
her Whole Duty of Man, and her Pilgrim’s
Progress; and, in a file beside them, her books
of housewifery, and among them volumes of MS. recipes,
cookery-books, and some too on surgery and medicine,
as practised by the Ladies Bountiful of the Elizabethan
age, for which an antiquarian would nowadays give
an eye or a hand.

Gentle half-foolish Philip Feltram would tell the
story of his wrongs, and weep and wish he was dead;
and kind Mrs. Julaper, who remembered him a child,
would comfort him with cold pie and cherry-brandy,
or a cup of coffee, or some little dainty.

“O, ma’am, I’m tired of my life.
What’s the good of living, if a poor devil is
never let alone, and called worse names than a dog?
Would not it be better, Mrs. Julaper, to be dead?
Wouldn’t it be better, ma’am? I think
so; I think it night and day. I’m always
thinking the same thing. I don’t care,
I’ll just tell him what I think, and have it
off my mind. I’ll tell him I can’t
live and bear it longer.”

“There now, don’t you be frettin’;
but just sip this, and remember you’re not to
judge a friend by a wry word. He does not mean
it, not he. They all had a rough side to their
tongue now and again; but no one minded that.
I don’t, nor you needn’t, no more than
other folk; for the tongue, be it never so bitin’,
it can’t draw blood, mind ye, and hard words
break no bones; and I’ll make a cup o’
tea—­ye like a cup o’ tea—­and
we’ll take a cup together, and ye’ll chirp
up a bit, and see how pleasant and ruddy the sun shines
on the lake this evening.”